The correspondence of the Government is dictated to stenographers and transcribed upon type-writers; and every form of modern improvement for the purpose of economizing time and saving labor is given the opportunity of a test, even if it is not permanently adopted. There is no Government that gives greater encouragement to inventive genius than the administration of President Diaz, and it has been one of the highest aims of his official career to modernize Mexico. The twelve years from 1876, when he came into power, until 1889, when his third term commenced, may be reckoned the progressive age of our neighborly republic; but the common people are still prejudiced against innovations, and resist them. In all the public places, and at the entrance of the post-office, are men squatting upon the pavement, with an inkhorn and a pad of paper, whose business is to conduct the correspondence of those whose literary attainments are unequal to the task. Such odd things are still to be seen at the capital of a nation that subsidizes steamship lines and railways, and supports schools where all the modern languages and sciences are taught, and has a compulsory education law upon its statute-books. In the old Inquisition Building, where the bodies of Jews and heretics have been racked and roasted, is a medical college, sustained by the Government for the free education of all students whose attainments reach the standard of matriculation; and bones are now sawn asunder in the name of science instead of religion. [Illustration: A WATER-CARRIER.] The country within whose limits can be produced every plant that grows between the equator and the arctics, and whose mines have yielded one-half of the existing silver in the world, is habitually bankrupt, and wooden effigies of saints stolen from the churches are sold as fuel for locomotives purchased with the proceeds of public taxation. What Mexico needs most is peace, industry, and education. The Government now pays a bounty to steamships upon every immigrant they bring, and is importing coolie labor to develop the coffee and sugar lands. Since 1876 there has not been a political revolution of any importance, and the prospect of permanent peace is hopeful.